Japan Autumn -Trip to Hibiya park

It is Autumn time in Japan. Richie is 10 months old now and this is his first experience of autumn. The weather is pretty cool, but he seems to enjoy himself.
Richie loves nature and the moment he steps out of the door in his stroller, he gives a broad smile with a "yeehh, yehh" meaning we are going out "grrrrooom, grooooom".


We thought of making a trip to Hibiya park to enjoy fall. The trees change their dress from green to beautiful orange, red, yellow color. On our way to the park we across the Imperial palace moat (called so as it surrounds the Imperial palace). His Majesty (The Emperor of Japan) lives in the Imperial Palace. There was a beautiful swan swimming in the waters and we were lucky to find it so close to us.

There were many people in the park. Some were sitting on the benches and reading books, some were doing photography, kids were playing and babies were enjoying a ride in the stroller.There was this wedding in a nearby hall and the Japanese bride was posing near the fountain. We could get a slight glimpse of her from far.


Another thing I loved was a man who was sitting near the fountain and playing his guitar. I liked the amalgamation of music with nature. It was soothing to the ears. Richie was enjoying the cool breeze near the big fountain. He loves the fountain. He got into a deep slumber in the cool breeze and got up right in time for a photo session.

Why are you boiling the white balls?

Here's the thing about the white balls. Riya placed a couple of them in the vessel, poured in some water and kept them to boil. I was carrying Richie, who was intently watching what mama was doing. Seeing the white balls in the water and the vessel on the flame, he immediately expressed his surprise. "Huh!?, Huh!?", he said, and "Huh!?" again.

Richie has recently become very curious. Rather, he always was, but recently he has begun to express his curiosity verbally. With a big question mark on his face, he'd go, "Huh!?,... Huh!?", interchanging looks with the thing he's curious about and the person who he expects an answer from - that would be Riya or me.

So what could it be that he was curious about this time? Now if you paid careful attention to my previous post, you'd realize that there was no white ball in the set of balls we recently brought for Richie. So his curiosity was well justified. Did he just want to know what it is that we were doing with white balls? Or where the white balls appeared from?

Kids and their questions! I could clearly see that the time had come. I look forward to some interesting years ahead, answering all those crazy questions that are going to pop up every now and then. So off I went, trying to address one of Richie's first questions - or at least what we could make sense of from his curious "Huh!?,... Huh!?". "Why are you boiling the white balls?". "Well, son, these are called eggs...".

Richie attempts three-ball juggling at ten months of age

A couple of weeks ago, Riya brought Richie some colored balls - blue, orange, yellow, pink and green, which instantly became his favorites. He'd hold one in each hand, and we'd have fun seeing him trying in vain to grab yet another one though his two hands were already fully occupied. He was almost obsessed with the balls and, for the first few days, would just not want to let go off of them. He'd even crawl, or rather commando on his arms/elbows, still holding on to a ball in each of his little hands.

Well, we ourselves liked the balls and, just for fun, even tried doing some juggling with the other three balls while Richie was focused on the two that he could handle. We would have probably tried it only for a few minutes, and didn't realize that we were actually being watched. As soon as we gave up juggling and kept the balls down, Richie immediately took control of them and, guess what, started banging the balls together desperately trying to juggle the balls himself.

I must say that he is a fast learner, and I sure am proud that he started juggling - or at least trying to do so - at an age as young as just ten months :-)

Fatherhood – Diary of a dad

Thank you, Riya!

Well, hello everyone! As you can see from the URL, little did my wife know when she started this blog that I would also contribute to it someday. She was pleasantly surprised when I said to her the other day that I would also like to write some posts, from the perspective of a dad.

The truth is that I have been wanting to take the time out to write, ever since Richie was conceived one and a half years ago. Lots of sweet memories and loads of stuff to share, but time just flew by so fast. I plan to make some back-dated posts to make justice to those memories, especially for Richie to read about them. So, better late than never, I'm here to write about it all - from a dad about his son, from a dad to his son.

Consequently, I hope to be able to convince Richie's mom to change the title of this blog to include "fatherhood" as well, but that would not be fair until my contributions come anywhere close to the loads of stuff that Riya has already brought about.

As I am joining the good stuff that Riya has been carrying on with such dedication all this while, I look forward to us making this a complete experience - from a mom as well as from a dad, from the proud parents of our lovely baby boy, Richie.

A warm welcome to Richie's Dada

The other day Richie's dada told me that he too would like to pen down sweet memories of our baby. I was thrilled to hear that. I have invited him to contribute to this blog. I am looking forward to his contributions of the journey of our lives together as parents. I am sure Richie will enjoy reading dada's posts when he grows up. And I hope you guys too.

A loud round of applause by small hands

I am very fond of singing and dancing. I often put on music and dance my heart out. It helps me to exercise and also keeps Richie entertained. He usually smiles and bounces while sitting.
The other day he did something different. As soon as my dance was over, he started clapping. O wow, my heart skipped a beat. Happily, I phoned my hubby and told,"You know what,I actually got a loud round of applause from small hands for my dance today".